As we are now writing history, it may be added that great men like Jose Maria often granted passports. This true trooper of the Deloraine breed was untrammelled with the fetters of spelling. Although he could barely write his name, he could _rubricate_[9] as well as any other Spaniard in command, or Ferdinand VII. himself. “His mark” was a protection to all who would pay him black mail. It was authenticated with such a portentous griffonage as would have done credit to Ali Pacha. An intimate friend of ours, a merry gastronomic dignitary of Seville, who was going to the baths of Caratraca, to recover from over-indulgence in rich ollas and valdepeñas, and had no wish, like the gouty abbot of Boccaccio, to be put on robber regimen, procured a pass from Jose Maria, and took one of his gang as a travelling escort, who sat on the coach-box, and whom he described to us as his “_santito_,” his little guardian angel. [Sidenote: TALISMANIC DEFENCES.] While on the subject of this spiritual and supernatural protection, it may be added that firm faith was placed in the wearing a relic, a medal of the Virgin, her rosary or scapulary. Thus the Duchess of Abrantes this very autumn hung the _Virgen del Pilar_ round the neck of her favourite bull-fighter, who escaped in consequence. Few Spanish soldiers go into battle without such a preservative in their _petos_, or stuffed waddings, which is supposed to turn bullets, and to divert fire, like a lightning conductor, which probably it does, as so few are ever killed. In the more romantic days of Spain no duel or tournament could be fought without a declaration from the combatants, that they had no relic, no _engaño_ or cheat, about their persons. Our friend Jose Maria attributed his constant escapes to an image of the Virgin of Grief of Cordova, which never quitted his shaggy breast. Indeed, the native districts of the lower classes in Spain may be generally known by their religious ornaments. These talismanic amulets are selected from the saint or relic most honoured, and esteemed most efficacious, in their immediate vicinity. Thus the “Santo Rostro,” or Holy Countenance of Jaen, is worn all over the kingdom of Granada, as the Cross of Caravaca is over Murcia; the rosary of the Virgin is common to all Spain. The following miraculous proof of its saving virtues was frequently painted in the convents:--A robber was shot by a traveller and buried; his comrades, some time afterwards passing by, heard his voice,--“this fellow in the cellarage;”--they opened the grave and found him alive and unhurt, for when he was killed, he had happened to have a rosary round his neck, and Saint Dominick (its inventor) was enabled to intercede with the Virgin in his behalf. This reliance on the Virgin is by no means confined to Spain, since the Italian banditti always wear a small silver heart of the Madonna, and this mixture of ferocity and superstition is one of the most terrific features of their character.